Quote

If one's bowels move, one is happy, and if they don't move, one is unhappy. That is all there is to it.

Lin Yutang

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Lin Yutang
Age: 80 †
Born: 1895
Born: October 10
Died: 1976
Died: March 26
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Philosopher
Translator
Writer
Bowels
Unhappy
Move
Happy
Moving

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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Such is human psychology that if we don't express our joy, we soon cease to feel it.
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An educated man is one who has the loves and hatreds together.
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On the whole, the enjoyment of leisure is something which decidedly costs less than the enjoyment of luxury. All it requires is an artistic temperament which is bent on seeking a perfectly useless afternoon spent in a perfectly useless manner.
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The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious ... it has need of a wise and merry philosophy.
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Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey.
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What threatens civilization today is not war, but the changing conception of life values entailed by certain political doctrines. Only by recapturing the dream of human freedom and restoring the importance of the common man's liberties can that undermining threat to modern civilization be averted
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No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.
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The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.
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We should not expect people to be good, but should make it impossible for them to be bad.
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There is more hope in a heather rose than in all the tons of Teutonic philosophy.
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Of all the unhappy people in the world, the unhappiest are those who have not found something they want to do.
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The age calls for simple statements and restatements of simple truths. The prophets of doom are involved, those who would bring light must be clear.
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However vague they are, dreams have a way of concealing themselves and leave us no peace until they are translated into reality, like seeds germinating underground, sure to sprout in their search for the sunlight.
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The purpose of a short story is ... that the reader shall come away with the satisfactory feeling that a particular insight into human character has been gained, or that his (or her) knowledge of life has been deepened, or that pity, love or sympathy for a human being is awakened.
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In the West, the insane are so many that they are put in an asylum, in China the insane are so unusual that we worship them.
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Neckties strangle clear thinking.
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Art is both creation and recreation.
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The only test of a soul's salvation is its inward happiness.
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To glorify the past and paint the future is easy, to survey the present and emerge with some light and understanding is difficult.
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He who is afraid to use an I in his writing will never make a good writer.
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